The cattle business has fallen from an “A” in the exceptional year of 2014, to now a more normal “C,” according to Jim Robb of the Livestock Marketing Information Center, who assigned a letter grade to the current status of the cattle industry for Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays. He says low cost producers will be in the best shape to tackle this economic downtrend.

“If you look at the long-term of this industry,” Robb said, “for decades, that’s been a big part of the story, is the cost containment, doing things right, getting back to fundamental business management.”

Robb explains, too, that with more pork and chicken headed down the pipeline, beef will be swimming upstream for some time to maintain its market share. He says it will take good planning, better management practices and taking advantage of the right opportunities will be what gets producers to the other side of this.

“We look ahead to this year and next year,” Robb explains, “probably in the summer of 2017, these summer grazing programs will work better than they did in 2014 and 2015.”